Electronic components, including integrated circuits, may be subject to testing prior to use, or during use, in order to ensure that they meet one or more predefined standards. Electronic components that fail to meet one or more such standard may be discarded (scrapped). In some cases, test results may be used to categorize (bin) electronic components into different categories that may be sold accordingly.
Testing may be performed by external testing equipment that is connected to an Integrated Circuit (IC) in a test facility. In some cases, instead of using such external test equipment, or in addition to using external test equipment, some testing may be performed by test circuits that are formed as part of an IC that is to be tested. Such Built-In Self-Test (BIST) circuits allow an IC to test itself and can save cost and time associated with maintaining a dedicated test facility with a large amount of test equipment.
Transceiver circuits typically include a transmitter side and a receiver side that may be tested together by coupling an output of the transmitter side to an input of the receiver side. Various metrics may be used when testing a transceiver.